Statistical Approaches to Forecasting Domestic Energy Consumption and Assessing Determinants: The Case of Nordic Countries

The residential sector accounts for large share of total annual energy use in the Nordic countries due to the extremely cold climates and high household heating demand. Most domestic energy consumption in the Nordic countries is for space heating and providing hot water. The purpose of our study was to forecast the annual energy consumption of the Nordic residential sectors by 2020 as a function of socio-economic and environmental factors, and to offer a framework for the predictors in each country.

Our research models the domestic energy use in Nordic countries based on social, economic and environmental factors. Applying the multiple linear regression (MLR), multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS), and the artificial neural network (ANN) analysis methodologies, three models have been generated for each country in the Nordic region. Using these models, we forecasted the Nordic countries domestic energy use by 2020 and assessed the causal links between energy consumption and the investigated predictors. The results showed that the ANN models have a superior capability of forecasting the domestic energy use and specifying the importance of predictors compared to the regression models. The models revealed that changes in population, unemployment rate, work force, urban population, and the amount of CO₂ emissions from the residential sectors can cause significant variations in Nordic domestic sector energy use.     

A financial comparison of Japanese and US manufacturers

This paper compares and contrasts the financial policies of Japanese and comparable U.S. manufacturing firms on the basis of 15 financial ratios. The findings indicate that there are significant differences between these two groups in 10 out of the 15 ratios investigated.Ali M. Fatemi is with the College of Business Administration at the Kansas State University. Hossein Safizadeh and Marna Jo Young are with the Wichita State University.     

Culture, management accounting and managerial performance: Focus Iran

Modern management and control systems may not be equally effective in every country. Budget participation is one of the effective tools in western nations. However, management control tools, in general, and budget participation, in particular, could be ineffective or even dysfunctional in other environments. Hofstede (1980) had suggested that cultural differences among countries are influencing factors. In this study, we investigate the impact of culture, budgetary participation, and management accounting systems on managerial performance in Iran. Three-way analyses of variance are used separately for each of the four cultural Hofstede dimensions. We find convincing evidence that the application of management tools and techniques developed in western countries for effective management performance is not as useful in the Iranian context.     

美联储货币政策过松 全球通胀危机重临

【香港《亚洲时报》4月8日】最近宏观经济指标确实很糟糕,不禁令人对全球化过程中的世界经济趋势感到忧心。自去年8月以来,美元兑欧元汇价已从1．37跌到了1．55;原油价格则由每桶65美元升到了110美元,导致燃料、石化产品及相关服务的涨价;